Powerful storm causes damage in Downingtown

DOWNINGTOWN — A severe thunderstorm rolled through the area Monday evening, uprooting trees and leaving thousands of homes without power.

Residents in Downingtown shared images of fallen trees, some uprooted and others that snapped at the trunk, across the borough. As of 8:45 p.m. about 5,900 households were without power in Chester County, according to PECO. More than 1,900 of those households were in Downingtown, and more than 1,700 without power were in Caln.

Downingtown Mayor Josh Maxwell said it appeared the borough may have been hit by a microburst, a strong concentrated weather phenomenon that creates destructive wind gusts. Maxwell said the borough had trees and wires down across 30 to 35 streets. Only a few minor injuries were reported, he said.

The mayor said a volunteer firefighter with more than 30 years of experience told Maxwell it was the worst damage he has seen spread across the borough. Police and public works employees were deployed across the borough to cut back fallen trees and limbs from roads.

“I thought the whole front of my house was falling down,” said Wesley Terry, whose home on the 400 block of West Pennsylvania Avenue was partially blocked by a fallen tree that used to grow in front of his house. “I feel really horrible for people who’ve been through a real tornado, if this wasn’t one, because that was pretty terrifying.”

The microburst hit the borough about 6 p.m., with residents saying that the damage was done in a matter of seconds.

“(It took) maybe five seconds, maybe less,” said Terry. “You could hear everything happen at the same time.”

Terry’s flagpole and the street sign identifying the intersection of West Pennsylvania Avenue and Hunt Street were buried under a mass of branches. One of his neighbor’s trees was also felled by the storm and was encroaching into Terry’s yard. Another of Terry’s trees, a tall pine, was snapped off at the top.

Concerned that the high winds could damage his house or family, Terry took himself and his son, Julian, inside and down to their basement, where they stood under a load-bearing wall until the winds subsided.

The borough will partly remove the fallen tree up to where it lies on Terry’s property, at which point it becomes his responsibility to remove what is left.